According JPL small body database https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=3713011#content there's a staggering uncertainty value regarding mean anomaly of 2014 MU69, could this explain the discrepancy with alignment? Or there's an error in data. On the other hand, only 58 observations were used in calculations.

According JPL small body database https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=3713011#content there's a staggering uncertainty value regarding mean anomaly of 2014 MU69, could this explain the discrepancy with alignment? Or there's an error in data. On the other hand, only 58 observations were used in calculations.

That might explain alot. From MPC, the table lists uncertainty value. For (486958) 2014 MU69 it is listed as 2.

Source of the post Hmm. I did take data for orbits of all minor planets from MPC, including epochs. Considering 2014 MU69 I did use the epoch and other data in similar way. The epoch from MPC should be 2457800.5 and mean anomaly 309.63873. How far off the minor planet was on its real position? Should I have tried to find more precise orbital data for this TNO if I did not make a mistake while writing the orbital data for SE. Is it even possible to get the orbit more precise in current SpaceEngine version?

Personally, I take the data from the JPL Small-Body Database Browser: https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgiThey have incredibly precise parameters with near to twenty decimals.

I also added 2014 MU69 from there, and it indeed appear behind Pluto. So it means they probably have more correct data.

EDIT: dammit, why I keep forgetting to check if there are new pages in a thread?

Source of the post Hmm. I did take data for orbits of all minor planets from MPC, including epochs. Considering 2014 MU69 I did use the epoch and other data in similar way. The epoch from MPC should be 2457800.5 and mean anomaly 309.63873. How far off the minor planet was on its real position? Should I have tried to find more precise orbital data for this TNO if I did not make a mistake while writing the orbital data for SE. Is it even possible to get the orbit more precise in current SpaceEngine version?

Personally, I take the data from the JPL Small-Body Database Browser: https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgiThey have incredibly precise parameters with near to twenty decimals.

I also added 2014 MU69 from there, and it indeed appear behind Pluto. So it means they probably have more correct data.

EDIT: dammit, why I keep forgetting to check if there are new pages in a thread?

I know the JPL database. I used it for the most physial parameters for minor planets. The problem was I was not sure about the epoch parameter there. Would the epoch parameter I should type in parameter section of orbits in the SE code be this number for Ceres, this for Pallas and this for Pluto?

Source of the post Hmm. I did take data for orbits of all minor planets from MPC, including epochs. Considering 2014 MU69 I did use the epoch and other data in similar way. The epoch from MPC should be 2457800.5 and mean anomaly 309.63873. How far off the minor planet was on its real position? Should I have tried to find more precise orbital data for this TNO if I did not make a mistake while writing the orbital data for SE. Is it even possible to get the orbit more precise in current SpaceEngine version?

Personally, I take the data from the JPL Small-Body Database Browser: https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgiThey have incredibly precise parameters with near to twenty decimals.

I also added 2014 MU69 from there, and it indeed appear behind Pluto. So it means they probably have more correct data.

EDIT: dammit, why I keep forgetting to check if there are new pages in a thread?

I know the JPL database. I used it for the most physial parameters for minor planets. The problem was I was not sure about the epoch parameter there. Would the epoch parameter I should type in parameter section of orbits in the SE code be this number for Ceres, this for Pallas and this for Pluto?

Well, yeah, I don't see why not. The Epoch is the time a set of orbital parameters refer to, and since Mean Anomaly is the angle along the orbit between the object's position and the pericenter, using an Epoch and a Mean Anomaly from different datasets (or putting no epoch if the Mean Anomaly doesn't refer to January 1st, 2000) is going to result in a very wrong placement.

Well, yeah, I don't see why not. The Epoch is the time a set of orbital parameters refer to, and since Mean Anomaly is the angle along the orbit between the object's position and the pericenter, using an Epoch and a Mean Anomaly from different datasets (or putting no epoch if the Mean Anomaly doesn't refer to January 1st, 2000) is going to result in a very wrong placement.

It seems that the observation arc for Pluto is greater in MPC than in the JPL database.

The problem with the catalogs is definitely real. SpaceEngine did not add all the asteroids in game. Also a weird thing happened with one of them, namely Krok. It did have wrong orbit. It looked like a main-belt object when it should have been an Amor-asteroid.

(EDIT the problem was several typos in my code, not any limitation in SE as pointed out by SpaceEngineer)

Hello again, if SpaceEngineer does approve my now complete update for the next SpaceEngine version of 0.981, the translators should be contacted about the changes in some of the comet names in the catalog.

They are significant considering the fact for example that comet names without the full designation are not unique in the Solar System among themselves, as comets are named after their discoverers and one individual may discover a huge number of comets that then will all have the same name. McNaught is one good example of this. There are so many Solar System's comets with this name, even included in the SE catalog itself. This is why I do not think it is a good idea to name only one of them as just "McNaught" as there are more of McNaughts in the catalog.

This is the reason I did change the names of these following comets in my update for SE catalogs is that it specifies about what particular comet is considered and it also allowed me to add the asteroids named after comets discoverers to the asteroid small catalog as well. I can only speak for myself and do not know what other people's opinion is in this matter but I do think that adding these asteroids in the catalog will give a more complete understanding for all the names used for our Solar System's objects.

I did reserve the names Oterma, Borrelly, Vaisala, Siding Spring, Halley, McNaught, LONEOS,Lovejoy, LINEAR, Lulin and ISON for corresponding asteroids/similar objects as minor planet names are unique among themselves. There can not be 2 with same name unlike it is with comets. The LINEAR asteroid is also a comet but as an asteroid its name is unique. There are however some comets that are one of their kind like C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp) so this comet can be kept as "Hale-Bopp" in the catalog. The other ones are 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and 153P/Ikeya-Zhang.

The thing with Oterma is that it was already in the catalog with its name and other asteroids have the same treatment in the catalogs. This and the uniqueness of minor planet names among their own kind is the reason why I changed the comet names. Also I do not know about all other languages but in my own language (Finnish) and in English also it is far more common to call 1P/Halley as Halley's comet instead of just "Halley" ,so I did change the English name in SE comets catalog for 1P as "Halley's comet". I would guess however that this situation is quite similar for many other languages as this is the case in my own language ("Halleyn komeetta") and I am pretty sure it is so in Swedish as well, correct me if I am wrong.

I have seen comets with same names been called like 9P and 10P"Tempel" as something like Tempel 1 or Hartley 3 when people do not want to refer them with their full comet designations and this is why I did change the names of these comets as well. The one of McNaught comets is among these comets as well. I did also discover that for some strange reason in the German translation the number was removed from 19P Borrelly even though it was already known as "Borrelly 3" in the English catalog, it is not the only comet known as Borrelly and then there is the asteroid that should have priority for the name "Borrelly" as there can not be 2 of the same name among minor planets. There is also asteroid "Tempel" but I did not add it to the catalog. Should I add it aswell?

I have done some error fixing in other files as well and did include the discovery times on every named asteroid and dwarf planet as it was already done in Solar System file for Uranus, Neptune some moons and dwarf planet Pluto.

I did also do this for binary asteroids and posted my update on that issue to that thread for threads topic author Mosfet to see.

Source of the post Another thing, I have ran into a problem considering the catalogs with current SpaceEngine version. I wonder is this a limitation in the game engine or some other problem. I tried to add some new near Earth asteroids to the SE catalogs, but it seems the game did not want to add all of them. Is there any way you could fix this for the new version if this problem is real.

Can you please be more specific?

Permian Therapsid wrote:

Source of the post Also the conflict with Greek letters and provisional minor planet designations in SE code. It would be nice, if you would be able find a way to stop 2014 MU69 becoming 2014μ69. I had to write it as 2014 Mu69 instead. This did also affect 3 other objects in the catalog: 2004 MU8, 2005 NU125 and 1998 MU31.

I planning to change Greek letters to BB-codes [MU], [NU] etc, but this needs significant amount of work. I delayed this to later versions. For now we must just live with 2014 Mu69.

Permian Therapsid wrote:

Source of the post I did also discover that for some strange reason in the German translation the number was removed from 19P Borrelly even though it was already known as "Borrelly 3" in the English catalog

This is because it has been added to the local database file (locale/ger-db.cfg)

Source of the post I did also discover that for some strange reason in the German translation the number was removed from 19P Borrelly even though it was already known as "Borrelly 3" in the English catalog

Source of the post Another thing, I have ran into a problem considering the catalogs with current SpaceEngine version. I wonder is this a limitation in the game engine or some other problem. I tried to add some new near Earth asteroids to the SE catalogs, but it seems the game did not want to add all of them. Is there any way you could fix this for the new version if this problem is real.

Can you please be more specific?

This is not a problem anymore, I had typo in my code and it is now fixed and working just fine.

SpaceEngineer wrote:

Permian Therapsid wrote:

Source of the post Also the conflict with Greek letters and provisional minor planet designations in SE code. It would be nice, if you would be able find a way to stop 2014 MU69 becoming 2014μ69. I had to write it as 2014 Mu69 instead. This did also affect 3 other objects in the catalog: 2004 MU8, 2005 NU125 and 1998 MU31.

I planning to change Greek letters to BB-codes [MU], [NU] etc, but this needs significant amount of work. I delayed this to later versions. For now we must just live with 2014 Mu69.

Ok, I understand. Thanks. There is another problem with UP designation, it is changing to arrow up. But I think it can be fixed with the same way maybe.

JackDole wrote:

What do you mean ? I see no difference between German and English.

Sorry, maybe I have been mistaken then, but I was reading the German translation file (ger-db.cfg) that I did have with my SE beta version and it did read like this:

I thought it meant that in German translation it was only "Borrelly / 19P (Borrelly)".

But the main point is that if SpaceEngineer will add my catalog update in the new version, the translators should check the changes in English versions comet names and how does it affect to the translated version so that comets and asteroids would not get mixed with one another, like Asteroid Halley and Halley's comet for example. If SpaceEngineer does add my update he will of course do what needs to be done considering the Russian version. I was just wanting to inform the people doing the other languages.

Then you get this:Berreally-ger2.jpgAnd you also have an entry in the 'Wiki' window.

Thanks, but I am not saying the comet should be known as just "Borrelly" in German as there are more Borrelly comets than 19P.

I was asking this because I thought the German version might have a problem with my catalog update. I did read German and Swedish translation files to give me some idea how to do the Finnish translation as I understand both German and Swedish.

My update does add some asteroids that were previously not included in SE. One of these is asteroid Borrelly. In the catalog it is known as Borrelly / (1539) Borrelly. So if I understand right what you are saying this asteroid would not get mixed up with the comet in the German version.

But the main point is that I changed the names of some comets in the Comets.sc file because it is the case that for example there is just not one comet McNaught there is a huge number of them. This is why I changed the name of McNaught / C/2006 P1 (McNaught) to McNaught 23 / C/2006 P1 (McNaught) for example. I did the same for other comets that had the same problem or other similar problem.

I did change comet 1P to be known as Halley's comet / 1P (Halley) because "Halley's comet" is how it is commonly known as in English. This also allowed me to add the asteroid Halley, in catalog as Halley / (2688) Halley to the SpaceEngine. Other asteroids I added include: McNaught, Lovejoy, Siding Spring and ISON. That is why I changed the named of comets conflicting with them. I did fear the translations would have a problem with this and that is why I did want to bring this to translators attention. Is this a problem for German translation?

I do think these asteroids are a good addition to SE as they would illustrate there are asteroids with similar names to comets because many minor planets are named to honor astronomers but many astronomers have also discovered one or more comets and comets get the name of their discoverer so there are many comets with the same name. Minor planets however can not have same name with another minor planet. This is why there can only be one asteroid Borrelly or McNaught but there already are many comet Borrellys or McNaughts.